I said, “They’re great.” I had spent that week walking into random places in town, asking if they had any work going, and getting laughed out of just about every single one. The world’s filthiest restaurant had had a kitchen-porter gig open and I had started getting my hopes up, on the grounds that no sane person would want it, but the manager had turned me down once he saw my address, with an unsubtle hint about inventory going missing. It had been months since Shay let a day go by without some line about how Mr. Leaving Cert and all his education couldn’t put a wage on the table. The barman had just taken the guts of my last tenner. Any band that played loud and fast enough to blow my mind empty was in my good books.

“Ah, no; not great. They’re all right, but half of it’s that.” Rosie motioned with her wineglass to the ceiling. Galligan’s had a handful of lights, most of them lashed to beams with what looked like baling wire. A guy called Shane was in charge of them. If you got too near his lighting desk carrying a drink, he threatened to punch you.

“What? The lights?” Shane had managed to get some kind of fast-moving silvery effect that gave the band an edgy, sleazy almost-glamour. At least one of them was bound to get some action after their set.

“Yeah. Your man Shane, he’s good. He’s what’s making them. This lot, they’re all atmosphere; knock out the lights and the costumes, and they’re just four lads making eejits of themselves.”

I laughed. “So’s every band, sure.”

“Sort of, yeah. Probably.” Rosie’s eyes went sideways to me, almost shyly, over the rim of her glass. “Will I tell you something, Francis?”

“Go on.” I loved Rosie’s mind. If I could have got inside there, I would happily have spent the rest of my life wandering around, just looking.

“That’s what I’d love to do.”

“Lights? For bands?”

“Yeah. You know what I’m like for the music. I always wanted to work in the business, ever since I was a little young one.” I knew that-everyone knew that, Rosie was the only kid in the Place who had spent her confirmation money on albums-but this was the first time she had said anything about lighting. “I can’t sing for shite, but, and the arty stuff wouldn’t be me anyway-writing songs or playing the guitar, nothing like that. This is what I like.” She tilted her chin up at the crisscrossing beams of light.

“Yeah? Why?”

“Because. That fella’s after making this band better. End of story. It doesn’t matter if they’re having a good night or a bad one, or if only half a dozen people show up, or if anyone else even notices what he’s at: whatever happens, he’ll come in and he’ll make them better than they would’ve been. If he’s honest-to-God brilliant at what he does, he can make them a load better, every time. I like that.”

The glow in her eyes made me happy. Her hair was wild from dancing; I smoothed it down. “It’s good stuff, all right.”

“And I like that it makes a difference if he’s brilliant at his job. I’ve never done anything like that. No one gives a toss if I’m brilliant at the sewing; as long as I don’t make a bollix of it, that’s all that matters. And Guinness’s would be exactly the same. I’d love to be good at something, really good, and have it matter.”

I said, “I’ll have to sneak you in backstage at the Gaiety and you can pull switches,” but Rosie didn’t laugh.

“God, yeah; imagine. This here is only a crap little rig; imagine what you could do with a real one, like in a big venue. If you were working for a good band that goes on tour, you’d get your hands on a different rig every couple of days…”

I said, “I’m not having you go off on tour with a bunch of rock stars. I don’t know what else you’d be getting your hands on.”

“You could come too. Be a roadie.”

“I like that. I’ll end up with enough muscles that even the Rolling Stones wouldn’t mess with my mot.” I flexed a bicep.

“Would you be into it?”

“Do I get to road test the groupies?”

“Dirtbird,” Rosie said cheerfully. “You do not. Not unless I get to ride the rock stars. Seriously, but: would you do it? Roadie, something like that?”

She was really asking; she wanted to know. “Yeah, I would. I’d do it in a heartbeat. It sounds like great crack: get to travel, hear good music, never get bored… It’s not like I’ll ever get the chance, though.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, come on. How many bands in Dublin can pay a roadie? You think these lads can?” I nodded at Lipstick On Mars, who didn’t look like they could afford their bus fare home, never mind support staff. “I guarantee you, their roadie is someone’s little brother shoving the drum kit into the back of someone’s da’s van.”

Rosie nodded. “I’d say lighting’s the same: only a few gigs going, and they’re going to people who’ve already got experience. There’s no course you can take, no apprenticeship, nothing like that-I checked.”

“No surprise there.”

“So say you were really into getting your foot in the door, right? No matter what it took. Where would you start?”

I shrugged. “Nowhere around here. London; maybe Liverpool. England, anyway. Find some band that could just about afford to feed you while you learned the trade, then work your way up.”

“That’s what I think, too.” Rosie sipped her wine and leaned back in the alcove, watching the band. Then she said, matter-of-fact, “Let’s go to England, so.”

For a second I thought I had heard wrong. I stared at her. When she didn’t blink I said, “Are you serious?”

“I am, yeah.”

“Jaysus,” I said. “Serious, now? No messing?”

“Serious as a heart attack. Why not?”

It felt like she had set light to a whole warehouse of fireworks inside me. The drummer’s big finishing riff tumbled through my bones like a great beautiful chain of explosions and I could hardly see straight. I said-it was all that came out-“Your da’d go through the roof.”

“Yeah, he would. So? He’s going to go through the roof anyway, when he finds out we’re still together. At least that way we wouldn’t be here to hear it. Another good reason why England: the farther the better.”

“Course,” I said. “Right. Jaysus. How would we…? We don’t have the money. We’d need enough for tickets, and a gaff, and… Jaysus.”

Rosie was swinging one leg and watching me steadily, but that made her grin. “I know that, you big sap. I’m not talking about leaving tonight. We’d have to save up.”

“It’d take months.”

“Have you got anything else to be doing?”

Maybe it was the wine; the room felt like it was cracking open around me, the walls flowering in colors I’d never seen before, the floor pounding with my heartbeat. The band finished up with a flourish, the singer whacked the mike off his forehead and the crowd went wild. I clapped automatically. When things quieted down and everyone including the band headed for the bar, I said, “You mean this, don’t you?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“Rosie,” I said. I put down my glass and moved close to her, face-to-face, with her knees on either side of me. “Have you thought about this? Thought it all the way through, like?”

She took another swig of wine and nodded. “Course. I’ve been thinking about it for months.”

“I never knew. You never said.”

“Not till I was sure. I’m sure now.”

“How?”

She said, “The Guinness’s job. That’s what’s after making up my mind for me. As long as I’m here, my da’s going to keep trying to get me in there, and sooner or later I’ll give up and take the job-because he’s right, you know, Francis, it’s a great chance, there’s people would kill for that. Once I go in there, I’ll never get out.”

I said, “And if we go over, we won’t be coming back. No one does.”

“I know that. That’s the point. How else are we going to be together-properly, like? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my da hanging over my shoulder giving out shite for the next ten years, wrecking our heads every chance he gets, till he finally figures out we’re happy. I want you and me to get a proper start: doing what we want to do, together, without our families running our whole bleeding lives. Just the two of us.”